Tag: Brock Lesnar

Wow, Frank Mir wants to face Brock Lesnar again more than we realized. The two-time UFC heavyweight champion (and two-time Lesnar adversary) recently told The Chronicle Journal that he is “not opposed to the idea” of becoming a professional wrestler, although he did clarify that he “can’t do a back flip or anything.”

Mir has never kept secret the fact that he wants revenge on Lesnar for the beating he took at Brock’s hands in their rematch. With Lesnar back in the WWE, maybe Mir realizes that his only chance at getting his paws on Brock again is for the two of them to work together in a squared circle.

But could Mir really be trusted to stick to the script and work collaboratively with his nemesis, should they meet up in the WWE? Daniel Puder taught us that MMA fighters can’t always be trusted to make pro wrestling superstars look good in the ring.

MMA fighters aren’t exactly known for their fashion sense. So it should come as little surprise that most MMA t-shirt companies produce some pretty questionable designs. The rampant abuse of foil print, skulls, chains, tribal designs and nautical stars among most MMA t-shirts is bad enough on its own; even worse when you consider that they sell for thirty bucks a pop.

Which I guess makes it all the worse when a fighter makes his way to the cage covered in an “athletic fit” Old-English mess. Not only is the shirt revolting, but it’s going to sell for an outlandish sum of money, and be worn by every overweight Texas Roadhouse chef, milquetoast tech support geek and muscle-bound frat boy.

Perhaps the reason that we’ve never attempted an “Ugliest Walkout Shirts” post is because ranking these train wrecks is like ranking, well, actual train wrecks. No matter what order you place them in, you’re a total scumbag for attempting to rank a tragedy from most to least depressing. And besides, you’re clearly wrong about which one belongs at number three. For that reason, these will not be ranked, per se, but rather categorized. How you feel these shirts fall into place is up to you.

Perhaps we’re in the minority here, but we’re getting pretty God damn sick of mixed martial artists throwing around the word “retirement” like Kim Kardashian throws around the word “marriage.” Because retirement, like marriage, is a sacred institution, and nowadays it seems as if every other fighter is taking a big, steaming turd on what was once holy ground. In the past year alone, both Jamie Varner and more recently B.J. Penn have retired, only to come out of said retirement before anyone could even assess their retirement in the first place. Though the jury is still out on how long Nick Diaz and Jason Miller will be out of action, it’s looking like you can add none other than former heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar to the former list, as it has been reported by co-Host of Tough Talk on wrestlingobserver.com, Mike Sawyer, that Lesnar will return to the UFC within the year. He broke the news over his Twitter:

Mike Sawyer ?@TOUGHTALKMMAHad an interesting conversation with someone VERY close to all the Brock Lesnar stuff. He is fighting THIS YEAR in UFC & not Frank Mir…

Mike Sawyer ?@TOUGHTALKMMAplans change all the time, but the name I was told isn’t Roy.

Brian ?@FrontRowBrian If it’s not Mir fighting Lesnar in UFC later this year as @TOUGHTALKMMA reports, who is it? @roynelsonmma? @stefanstruve? @ShaneCarwin II?

Friday night, Bellator Heavyweight Champion Cole Konrad kicked off an impressive weekend for heavyweight MMA with his first title defense against Eric Prindle at Bellator 70 in New Orleans, Louisiana. After the event, I managed to catch up with the champion in order to talk about his victory and the current state of Team DeathClutch. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my microphone with me (again), so at times the interview is hard to hear. I’ve taken the time to transcribe it for you, available after the jump.

Junior trains out of Luis Carlos Dorea’s Champion Boxing gym in Brazil which, in addition to being headquarters for world-class fighters, is home to a vibrant youth boxing program. After training one day, the UFC Primetime cameras caught one of the little tikes hanging asking Junior to take him with him to the states for his title fight.

At the time, Junior said, “we’ll see.” But he ended up bringing the 9 year-old kid and his family to Vegas to watch him win. After beating Mir, he lifted the lucky young fighter onto his shoulders and posed for the cameras along with his coaches.

Dos Santos definitely appears to have the Wanderlei Silva nice guy/maniac fighter balance down pat. Try as I might, that image warms my cynical heart, and I don’t give a damn how orchestrated it may or may not have been. Who doesn’t like watching a kid’s dream come true before their eyes?

As painful as the UFC post-fight press conferences are to sit though, you sure do learn (or at least get teased with) some vital information about the future of the organization. Stuff like: Dana White saying that he doesn’t want to deal with Alistair Overeem because “he sat in front of us . . . . Lied to us.” There is an entire horse meat story waiting to be written by Josh Hutchinson on that, but I am talking about good juicy TMZ’esque gossip shit. The Overeem issue is kind of news but it was overshadowed by another series of questions asked.

Because there was not a camera pointed at the media members, I am not certain it wasAriel Helwani – but I am pretty damn positive – who asked the most intriguing questions of the night. I AM sure that there are not a lot of guys that (sound like a baritone-polite-Mogwai and) have the stones to ask the necessary questions – but big props to Helwani if it was in fact him.

(Look, Roy, we’re all big Harry Potter fans, but this Rubeus Hagrid obsession of yours is going a little far.)

Like that of current light heavyweight champ Jon Jones, former UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar seems to be the subject of much debate amongst the MMA community. Not only was his heart called into question following his UFC 141 loss to Alistair Overeem, but in light of recent events, even the legitimacy of his title reign has seemingly been written off by some fans of the sport and wiped from the collective memories of others. Meanwhile, the hardcore conspiracy theorists claim that Lesnar’s run was nothing more than a genius ploy by Vince McMahon to boost Lesnar’s popularity before looping him back into the WWE. He’s a polarizing figure to say the least.

You know what? If Brock belongs in the hall of fame, so do I. It’s not that hard to win the title when it’s set up that way for you. Pretty much [a silver platter]. After Dave Herman, I guess I get a title shot. Interim! Because someone’s gonna get hurt.

Anyway, join us after the jump for Nelson’s full interview with Helwani, in which he also discusses his diet (of course), returning to his Kung-Fu roots, as well as his (and every fighters) gripes with his pay rate.

(Come on Tim, you haven’t even read the column yet. Maybe we wrote nice things about you, okay?)

Today on the CagePotato Roundtable, we’re talking paper champs — the one-and-dones and never-shoulda-beens who weren’t quite worthy of the gold around their waist. To limit our scope a bit, we’re only focusing on major MMA promotions like the UFC (including tournament champions), PRIDE (even though all their champions were awesome), Strikeforce, the WEC, and probably Bellator and DREAM as well if anybody cared enough to mention them. Joining us this week is our dear friend Kelly Crigger, the retired solider and best-selling MMA author who’s currently elevating rugby-awareness at American Sin Bin. Read on for our picks, and please, please, please send your ideas for future Roundtable topics to tips@cagepotato.com.

Jared Jones

For four months in 2001-2002, Dave Menne — the fighter who Phil Baroni famously steamrolled at UFC 39 — was the UFC’s middleweight champion. That’s right: The belt that Anderson Silva has proudly worn for the last five-and-a-half years used to belong to this guy. Menne won the title in September 2001 by beating 5-0 newcomer Gil Castillo, and went on to compile an overall record of 2-4 in the Octagon. Gentlemen, the floor is yours. Good luck.

The worst major MMA champion of all time has to be Carlos Newton. For starters when you say your fighting style is Dragon Ball Z Jiu Jitsu to pay homage to a Japanese anime character, there’s a screw loose somewhere.

Secondly, when Newton won the UFC welterweight title, there wasn’t exactly a deep talent pool of competition. MMA was still evolving and techniques were as sound as using bubble gum on a car engine. I will admit that he beat a very experienced and talented Pat Miletich to get the strap, but that’s the lone gem in his dreadlocked crown. Today every weight class has a laundry list of accomplished fighters and an alternate list of accomplished fighters waiting in the wings in case they tweet something controversial and Mr. White fires all of them. The point is, he didn’t exactly climb a ladder of giants to get to the belt.

It takes one to know one, we guess, because according to UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture,former UFC Heavyweight Champion and current WWE superstar Brock Lesnar should be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame. Yes, on last night’s episode of UFC Tonight, Couture sat down alongside Kenny Florian and Todd Harris to answer questions from all around the Twittersphere, because apparently that’s something which happens now. Among the questions asked were, “Do you have any up and comers in [Team Couture] that have a chance to make an impact in the next two years?” Couture was quick to point out Martin Kampmann, but also commended welterweight contender Mike Pyle, who he stated was “one of the most talented guys I’ve had the privilege of training with the last seven years.”

But Couture’s most interesting comment came after he was asked whether or not Lesnar deserved a spot in the UFC Hall of Fame. Considering Lesnar’s brief run in the sport, which totaled just over four years in its entirety, combined with his mediocre 5-3 record, one would not expect that Couture would be quick to jump on the “yes” bandwagon. Then again, Lesnar was able to capture the Heavyweight title by pummeling Couture into masturbatory hammerfist oblivion at UFC 91, so perhaps it made sense for Couture to declare that Lesnar did in fact deserve a spot alongside such names as Chuck Liddell, Royce Gracie, and Matt Hughes. Oh, and let’s not forget Tito Ortiz and B.J. Penn.

Anyway, check out the video after the jump, and let us know what you think of Couture’s assessment in the comments section. Not that we need to remind you, but be sure to be as scathing with your criticisms as humanly possible.

For chaos-loving MMA fans, getting one over on Wikipedia is a mark of honor. This UG thread reminded us of the hilarious tradition of Wikipedia-page vandalism, so we decided to scour the Internet for some of our favorite MMA-related examples; thanks to all the anonymous men and women who quickly screen-capped these gems before they were fixed. Check out our full gallery of MMA wiki edits after the jump, and if we’ve left out any good ones, shoot us some links in the comments section.